Dear !*TITLE*! !*LASTNAME*!,
The 24th Stora Enso Cup, our golf event with the Swedish chamber, was played on Friday in beautiful weather on a fine course in Chiba. No fighting, just great camaraderie in a friendly competition. Read about the results and more below!
Our next event is a Joint European Chamber Networking evening on Wed. 23 April at 19:00. Due to unforseen circumstances the EBC Chairman Danny Risberg had to withdraw so we have now another speaker, Alan Mackenzie, the Country Manager of IKEA BUSINESS. His theme will be "We have all the Screws!". When Tommy Kullberg, who started up IKEA Japan made a presentation in 2005 to the Nordic Chambers his theme was "The screws are missing"...
More about this also below.

The 24th Stora Enso Cup, the golf challenge between the Swedish and Finnish Chambers was played on Friday, 11 April at Golf Club Narita Hightree in Chiba Prefecture. The event was played in perfect spring weather for a fine day of golf on a colorful and beautiful course.
30 players participated in the competition (15 from both chambers), including one guest. Notable was that 17 (60%) of the players were Japanese.
The Finnish Chamber came on now top for the fifth time in a row. This FCCJ beat the Swedish Chamber by a fairly large margin this time, 3.84 strokes on average per player, 80.91 versus 84.75 as average for the best 80% in each team. The FCCJ now has six more wins than the SCCJ, 15 against 9.
The best golfer on the day was Tuomo Kuuppo (FCCJ) who was Best Net (66), Kuuppo was also Best Gross (84).
For a full report from the event, click links at right!

Wednesday, 23 April - Joint Chambers Networking Event organized by CLIC:
IKEA BUSINESS - we have all the screws!
Our first event is a joint Chambersf Networking evening were we have Mr Alan Mackenzie from one of the most successful European companies in Japan during the recent years, IKEA, as our speaker. Mr Mackenzie is the Country Manager of IKEA BUSINESS and he will tell us about the reasons behind IKEA's success in the Japan, challenges they met and how they have tackled them. He will also give us an insight in IKEA's future plans in Japan and the concept behind IKEA BUSINESS.
Details:

About Alan Mackenzie
Mr. Alan Mackenzie is the Country Manager for IKEA BUSINESS, overseeing operations of business departments in all 8 stores in Japan. He is also responsible for strategic planning, forecasting, goal setting, budgeting and new projects and services for business customers.
Mr Mackenzie is originally from Fairfield, Connecticut and earned a BA degree in International Business/Economics from Muhlenberg College in 1990. He moved to Japan in 1991 working first as a language teacher. He joined IKEA in 2006 and is a fluent Japanese.

News from FinlandPM: Finland should embrace open, international integration and consider NATO membership
Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen stressed that the Finnish ship is not sinking, despite his surprise decision a week ago to step down at the end of his term. He notes that during these challenging times the country's political and economic future should be driven by a liberal, open-minded international attitude that welcomes foreigners.
Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen stressed that the Finnish ship is not sinking despite his surprise decision to step down at the end of his term as National Coalition party chair and Prime Minister, announced a week ago Friday.
"Particularly after the decisions that have been made by the government this spring, I view Finland's future as safer than before," he said.
He based his surprise decision to leave politics on the time being right: "The National Coalition Party needs a new chairman, new people and new ideas that will take Finland forward."
Pro-NATO
Katainen expressed his opinion that Finland should consider NATO membership along with Sweden, when the time is right.
"My personal opinion is that Finland should belong to NATO. It would strengthen Finland's position. But I'm in the minority," he said, stressing that the current government does not support his opinion and that the official foreign policy stance of Finland has not changed.
Katainen said that there is no acute security risk facing Finland because of the situation in Ukraine. He feels, however, that Finland should enhance integration with other countries, including Russia. He hopes for more diverse investments by Russians in Finland and Finns in Russia. And for that matter, with other countries.
"We should not be driven by fear, we should embrace open, liberal, international integration," said Katainen.

Grin of the WeekOld Man and New Man
A man was taken to court for stealing an item from a store. The man said
to the judge, "Your Honor, I'm a Christian. I've become a new man. But I
have and old nature also. It was not my new man who did wrong. It was my
old man."
The judge responded, "Since it was the old man that broke the law, we'll
sentence him to 60 days in jail. And since the new man was an accomplice
in the theft, we'll give him 30 days, too. I therefore sentence you both
to 90 days in jail."

If you have any comments, rumors, gossip or inside information, send it to: fccj@gol.com

ABOUT THIS BULLETIN
This bulletin is
published by the Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Japan (FCCJ) and
distributed to over 650 recipients among its members and related
organizations. FCCJ was established in April 1999 to promote trade and
economic exchange between Japan and Finland and has today 64 corporate
members, 12 individual and one special member.